Facing Life’s Challenges

By Sister Sofia Mamani These days I seem to be faced with challenges, especially at work. What follows are vignettes that have helped me to keep going no matter what.  I work at Santiago Apostol Hospice, in Chimbote, Peru. It is an institution that offers companionship for the dying. We offer pain control as well as spiritual and emotional support. The first few months as a physical therapist there, I saw patients together with other therapists, then I realized I needed to spend more time with each patient, so I started seeing them alone. Then I could tend to them in their own time and space. I became better acquainted with them. One day I went to visit Celmira Chavez, 90 years old. She has been bedridden for eight years and has an advanced case of breast cancer, to the point that she now has painful wounds and can only sit up in bed for a few seconds at a time. Celmira is a peaceful patient and she likes to eat something every few minutes. She has three children: Maruja, Lucho and Raul. Maruja has assumed primary responsibility for her mother’s care. On this day, Maruja wasn’t there. She had returned to Lima to pay her rent and had left Raul and Lucho (age 55 and 66, I estimate) in charge of caring for their mother. I knocked on the door as I always did and Raul answered the door. When I asked for Maruja, he said “She’s traveling; you do what you have to do.” I went to the patient and started with arm and leg exercises. Suddenly Raul entered the room to watch. He called his brother Lucho in the room. Lucho approached aggressively and started to yell. “My mother’s is going to get well! Why are you doing all this?” “I am preparing her for a good death,” I told him, and this only served to make him more angry. I took a deep breath and looked into his eyes full of hatred and said nothing more. As he backed away, he continued yelling about how in other countries, his mother would have been given a pill so she could die a quick death, while ignorant Peruvians instead wait for God to decide. I was shocked by this exchange and at a subsequent visit, Maruja and I talked about it. She explained that her brothers are mean. She explained how every day she goes home depressed and tired from taking care of her mother day and night while her brothers remain detached. I let her talk and get things off her chest. Now, another experience. Jose Lopez is 89 and is a paraplegic with abdominal sepsis. Jose is a special patient. Sometimes he cries and sometimes he is stubborn. He’s like a child. He has six children and they are all professionals. They take turns caring for their father. Even so, the second youngest son is the one who has taken charge of his care. He has taken his father home to care for him 24 hours a day. It is a beautiful atmosphere. On one of my regular visits, Jose tried to hit me. He has yelled at me before. He doesn’t like the arm movements. The pain makes him lose his patience. Nonetheless, I have persisted and with each visit he has started moving his arms more. Now, all I have to do is remind him and encourage him to keep working. Before, he wouldn’t even let his children touch him. Jose’s illness, particularly his paraplegia, has left him bedridden, and this makes him totally dependent on the help of his children. In fact, his son has learned how to care for his father, from taking care of his personal hygiene to how to move him. I have taught him how to do his therapy as well. One day he jokingly commented that he was ready to work in hospice care. I believe it. He is so happy, and he is supported by his wife and son. Jose’s oldest daughter told me she once met Incarnate Word Sisters and that she always wanted to join the religious life but her father wouldn’t let her. Today, she is married but remembers the sisters fondly. For years, she has been involved in pastoral care at her church. I have so many more stories to tell. Every patient is so special. I chose these two stories to give you an idea of how sons and daughters care for their parents. In both cases, they learned to love in the extreme thanks tohospice. When they saw how total strangers could treat their families with love and respect, it motivated themto do more. All this has served to remind me of the institution’s objective, “to look beyond the disease,” and to add to it my own personal objective, “to see Jesus Christ in every patient who needs my help.” Both goals make the person the priority. This strengthens my resolve, and it reminds me of the importance of the one son or daughter who assumes complete responsibility for their loved one’s care and does it brilliantly.

Date: 21/Agu/2009